Japanese mobile operator Docomo bought a stake in “gaming Netflix” from the creators of Angry Birds

Mobile operator NTT Docomo has acquired a stake in Hatch, a streaming service from studio Rovio. The size of the purchased minority share and its value are not specified.

According to TechCrunch, by the time the shares were sold, Rovio owned 80% of Hatch. The remaining 20% belonged to the service itself. It is unknown which of them was the seller in the deal with Docomo.

Docomo Plans

The investment will be used to expand both the platform itself and its game selection. This is reported in the official Hatch press release.

In addition, the service will gradually begin to be brought to the Japanese market. Starting next week, Hatch will be available for Android devices of Japanese users. It will also appear on Docomo Android-based set-top boxes.

For Hatch, the opportunity to conquer the Japanese market means a lot. This will give it a chance to become a serious competitor for similar platforms from Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

What kind of Hatch

Hatch is a streaming service, something like a gaming Netflix or Spotify. It provides players with 20 mobile titles from different publishers for free. To get access to the full Hatch library (which is more than 100 games), the user will have to spend money on a subscription.

The Hatch collection includes games such as:

• Bad Piggies (from Rovio itself);
• Evoland;
• Monument Valley;
• Hitman GO;
• Horizon Chase;
• Space Invaders Infinity Gene;
• Arkanoid Rising (it will be placed in the spring).

Hatch is not yet available in Russia, but it will be launched this year.

Also on the topic:

• Rovio announced the development of 12 new gamesTake-Two: “Cloud streaming lacks a convenient business model”